CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The rate of increase in population in the world is fast growing especially in developing countries like Nigeria, that societal demands for essential goods and services are so much on the increase that government owned companies and industries cannot meet up with these demands. The government being aware of these pertinent problems created a healthy environment in which some multi-nationals, the societal demands for services and goods have been satisfied, but not completely.
Further, since human beings are insatiable and the satisfaction of a problem leads to another, the society at large demanded for some other smaller commodities in which the government owned and multi-national companies couldn’t meet up with the demands because of either disturbance in their production schedules or the small quantities demanded. The government therefore gave legal authority by way of edicts to interested individuals to establish their own small-scale companies of their choice. Not only that they were given legal authority, they were given loans by government to set up financial institutions to monitor and supervise the operations of these small scale industries.
Agason Nigeria limited an example of such a small scale company established under such edicts: it is purely a one man business which was established in 1990, but it started production in 1994. It is a soap manufacturing company located in Owerri industrial layout in Imo state and has a staff capacity of thirty, made up of three supervisors graduates, and the rest of the staff are semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Her products are Anchor quality bar soap, ladder bar soap, Anchor and ladder tablets.
The organizational structure is such that the owner does all the managerial functions and every worker is expected to report to him before any actions are taken. But the company has not really received the financial assistant from banks because of lack of personnel and poor managerial capability of the owner. But it should be noted that whatever may be the organizational goals or activities of any company, it can only be achieved and implemented through effort and capabilities of people. Otherwise the organizational structure must be manned and staff properly. Therefore it can clearly be put that the appropriate management of human resources is an essential responsibilities in all business regardless of size, in fact, the smaller the business, the less important it is to select the right persons for the right job.
The question now become who then selects the right person and how did it start in small scale organizations. Small scale organization has been with man, since the creation of man. Man has produced controlled and sold his commodities before now, and it is on history that every organization started as a small scale. During the early stages, man was regarded as an adjunct to machine which will be used fullest and discarded when not productive. This theory is regarded as “factor of production approach” or "commodity approach” and was founded by Taylor and his associates. It is the scientific management principle, and they argued that if wages are tied to the units produced, a worker will produce more units to get more money.
This approach gave rise to paternalistic management; which means management should show a fatherly protection towards the employees. It was predominant during the 1920s and replaced the commodity approach. The paternalistic benefits ranged from loans and appointment of welfare officers whose duty was to improve the welfare of employees.
During the 19th century, some group of persons tried to intervene in industrial affairs to support the position of underprivileged factory workers at the mercy of greedy employees. This process was known as social reformer and was greatly propounded by Lord Shaftesbury and Robert Owen they stood outside the organization and work place to criticize the behavior of employers and induce some changes. Personnel manager were appointed and provided with the frame of reference for the appointees to work within. It is important to that these companies under study were small scale companies. The social reformer gave birth to the “Benevolence” which was the next stage of personnel management and was developed by Quaker Families of Cadbury and Rowntree and the Lever brothers it appointed welfare officers who were given specific responsibilities for improving the lot of employees. They provided goodies for the employees because they partly desired them and they included childcare and health screening the benevolence lead to the “human official” or “Benevolent Approach “. At this stage, employing organization were taken a further step in increasing their size, specialization was emerging in the management levels and it led to the growth of personnel work , which is known as “staffing “.